The Skeleton in the Cave
by Jazzola
Summary: If you've watched "Hang In There, Scooby-Doo", you'll remember the mad skeleton in the cave. This is just a little oneshot telling his story. Please review! K plus for slight bloodiness.


A/N: If you've watched the Pterodactyl Ghost episode (Hang In There, Scooby-Doo) you'll know that the gang encountered a skeleton in the caves. This is just a little story, the one behind the skeleton in the cave. You may notice that mentally, he is pretty much mad; one of the reasons he became a hermit. But it's better to be mad and happy than sane and unhappy. Jazzola :)

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Sitting here, all alone… it's hardly a life.

I mean death.

I was a hermit once, a happy-go-lucky guy without a care in the world. Originally I was a townsman, living in the nearby town with the people whom I had grown up with. And then I began to crave the simple life. Back then, people like me were strange, evil. So I left. People never disturbed me, I never went near them. After so many years I doubted anyone even remembered me.

And then it happened.

I remember the night; it was moonlit, a good night for singing as I sat out at the front of the cave and began to sing. My favourite song, _Old Man River_. My papa taught me it when I was a little boy. I let my voice waver and flicker and I didn't care. My wonder was the feeling of exuberance that I got from letting it come out of my mouth and spill into the calm dusk air.

A disturbance came from the bush behind me, and I looked round, letting my beard catch on a twig from the scrubby mountain bush next to me.

They were youths, their eyes wide, grabbing at each other and whispering, "The hermit of the hills! Get away, quick!" I spread my arms to show them that I wasn't going to hurt them, but they were gone before I could say any more.

I looked at my hand and saw that my spear was clutched in my hand.

More people came up the next day, and called to me to lay down my weapons. I did.

It was the last thing I ever did.

A crossbow arrow shot me through the chest and I gasped, falling onto the hard soil, letting my blood spill onto the land that was my home, more of a home than the town had ever been. I wasn't sad to die.

I just wish they had let me sing _Old Man River _one more time.

They carried my body back into the cave that had been my home. But although I was no more than a corpse, still I was alive in one sense. My glassy eyes still saw, although they would not move. My ears still heard, my tongue tasted sharp blood. My body was alive and dead at the same time and I was stuck in limbo until the flesh had rotted from my bones and only my skeleton was left, punctured by the arrow from the hateful crossbow. I pulled it from me as soon as my arms moved.

For years and years I watched the world change. Strange bird-like shapes flew past the entrance to my cave, glittering in the sun which had long since evaporated my blood from the dusty ground.

Every night, I sang _Old Man River _softly to myself, remembering sweeter memories of life and my prized solitude and wishing that flesh still lingered on my dry, white bones. My clothing remained, my long coat and my scruffy, stained old trousers, but they only covered what I knew was there and it didn't help as flesh would have done.

There was a hubbub one day, and I dared to walk to the edge of the cave and look down to see what was happening. I knew if I was seen people would come and get me and I wouldn't be alone any more. I wouldn't be able to sing to myself.

They were setting something up. I had long since forgotten the basic shapes of letters I had once learned at the town schoolhouse but I could see it was a competition. All people with their strange person-kites, different people, dressed in modern clothes I had never seen before. I didn't go any further. I went back inside and sang.

And then one of them was in the air, and there was a dog underneath it, clinging on. I laughed at the dog, but not loud enough for him to hear me as he swooped near my cave. His friends rescued him and I lay back and watched the clouds. One of them was shaped like a person-kite.

It could have been hours later, it could have been the next day, but suddenly there were people around my cave, coming in, coming nearer to me. I stopped singing and waited for them to find me. I couldn't hide; there was nowhere to hide.

Two of them ran in; I could tell it was the dog I had seen before and a boy, about the age of the youths who had accused me. I would have shuddered at the memory, but to shudder I needed flesh.

"Ruh-roh. Rook!"

I didn't really understand what was being said, but I knew the dog had talked. Once I would have been amused at that, but it meant nothing to me now. All I wanted was for them to leave me alone. I hummed _Old Man River _and focused on the other side of the cave.

"Relax, Scoob. It's not the ghost, it's just a man. Boy am I glad to see you, you know we thought this whole cave was haunted?"

I smiled at his voice, thinking of the word. Haunted.

Wait… haunted?

"Haunted?! Let me outta here!" I cried, turning and running. Running from them, running from the cave. I didn't know where I was going, I just ran. I do that a lot. I don't know why my mind does it.

I could see the entrance to the cave, and I could see the red on the ground. There was still something left, something left of the people who had killed me, of me when I was alive.

I didn't see the cliff until it was too late.

I plunged down into the gulf, falling and falling…

And then black as I was dashed on the ground and my bones were scattered on the ground and in the river, the last legacy of the old hermit.

But I didn't mind.

I sang _Old Man River _as I fell.

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A/N: I know it wasn't really Scooby-related hugely, but well… I hope you liked it, anyway. Please tell me if you did! In case you didn't figure it out, the boy and dog were Scooby and Shaggy. Just saying, in case you were confused… I know I don't make things very clear. Jazzola :)


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